Annabelle Dinda

I was the eager offspring of a musical obsessed mother, so I have no memory of the first time I encountered theater. I'm sure it was a 2001 Broadway for Babies CD that played nonstop in our Honda minivan. I do, however, remember my first big role as the Genie in Aladdin Jr., and the discovery of how electric it felt to get to be silly on stage. Silliness in theater is very important to me, even when writing a musical set in an eating disorder recovery center.

While I considered myself a songwriter long before I could actually write a song, I didn't muster up the courage to imagine myself as a writer until well into college. I had this idea I would study music in school, but inextricably found myself drawn to poetry and creative writing, and decided that I would be a better songwriter if I went back to the basics and learned how to write a story. Tracy K. Smith, who was the poet laureate in 2017, has been my favorite poet and writer since I first read her work when I was 19 years old. Her 2011 collection of poetry 'Life on Mars,' single-handedly changed the way I think about composition-- and life, if I'm being honest.

My music, no matter how hard I try to stray from myself, always tends to fall somewhere in the folk/rock range, with a hint of pop when I feel like dancing. This piece is no different, and what I like about alternative, more acoustic music is its ability to sonically get right to the core of a feeling, without being too obvious. I love when, in a musical theater space, there is room for music to be casual and soft, as opposed to a perfectly crafted show tune. (Don't get me wrong-- I love show tunes, they just refuse to be recreated by my brain.)

Writing music is nothing short of cathartic for me. I think about it a lot, in fact-- how lucky I am to live this life in which I have a built-in setting, or, rather, an inclination towards something that some people spend years searching for, something that grants me absolute freedom and contentment. When people listen and respond to music, it is an undeniably good feeling. But for me, it doesn't even come close to the experience of writing alone, of working through a problem and coming out the other end with an indulgent product. The moment I first finished a song, alone in my room when I was 10 years old, was the moment I knew that this practice would become the backbone of my life.